Émile Danco

Émile Danco (29 November 1869 - 5 June 1898) was a Belgian polar explorer.

He was a lieutenant in the Belgian artillery and trained at the Royal Military Academy in Brussels, Belgium. He was a personal friend of Adrien de Gerlache de Gomery and became the first recruit for the Belgian Antarctic Expedition aboard the Belgica.

Danco took part in several excursions during the first period in Antarctica, notably in early February 1898, when he joined de Gerlache, Amundsen, Cook and Arctowski on the expedition’s first camping trip, to an island west of the Antarctic Peninsula they named Brabant Island.

Honors Danco Island in the Gerlache Strait was named by Adrien de Gerlache de Gomery for Émile Danco